


Seeking Whom He May Devour

by linndechir



Category: Original Work
Genre: Corruption, Dark Magic, Dream Invasion, Forced to enjoy it, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Religious Guilt, Shame, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-05-31 12:44:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15119675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: When temptation came to him, it was not an ugly thing. It was the most beautiful sight Raphael had ever laid eyes on. What a fool he'd been to think himself above sin.





	Seeking Whom He May Devour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VenatorNoctis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenatorNoctis/gifts).



_Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour._

1 Peter 5:8 (KJV)

*

He had been lost long before the Devil had ever touched him.

From his earliest childhood on he’d been taught that temptation came from within. That it was not the Devil or demons or hell that made a man stray from the path of goodness and virtue, but his own weakness and fallibility. The Devil might provide opportunity, he might beckon and call, but a man whose heart was pure would never be truly tempted by the phantasms and mirages the world offered. A man whose heart was pure would never stray, for if he strayed, it was because he was sinful. The sinfulness came from within his own soul.

Raphael had thought himself a good man. He’d been an obedient child, gentle and docile and polite. He’d loved his father, and he loved his community, and he loved God, and before long he had felt the calling to dedicate his life to the Church. He’d been a diligent student and he’d always striven to be helpful and kind in every situation. Temptation had rarely ever reared its ugly head and so he had thought himself safe. He was twenty-four and pure, untouched by man or woman, untouched by greed or envy or wrath. He did not dream of riches or fame, he did not wish for a more exciting life, he did not overindulge in food or drink, he never raised his voice in anger or reproach, he did not covet the worldly matters he had renounced in his vows.

It had been pride to think himself free of sin.

When temptation came to him, he did not think it the work of the Devil. He thought it the work of God, to call him out on his arrogance, to remind him that he was as tainted with sin as any other man and that it was his duty and burden to resist it.

When temptation came to him, it was not an ugly thing. It was the most beautiful sight Raphael had ever laid eyes on. He’d been assigned to a new parish to assist old Father Luke with his duties. The church he now spent his days in was old, Gothic arches and frequently disturbing stained glass, gargoyles and monsters crawling across the parapets. It was the church of an old faith, a faith that believed in hellfire and damnation as much as it believed in God’s love, a faith that put more stock in Revelation than in the Sermon on the Mount. It was beautiful in its own way, or rather it was sublime – the terrifying, breathtaking beauty of a wildfire, of a storm, of a bottomless abyss. 

In one of the church’s smaller alcoves stood a gleaming white marble statue of unspeakable beauty. It depicted an angel with the loveliest face Raphael had ever beheld, curls framing high cheekbones and lips that whispered of sin, powerful wings spread out from a well-muscled back, a flawless body covered by nothing more than a marble’s hint of silk over his loins. It was bright and pure in a way the church itself wasn’t, and yet it spoke of that same dreadful beauty that could drive a man into madness.

For it wasn’t Gabriel or Michael whose marble eyes froze him to the spot, nor those of his divine namesake. It was Lucifer, Bringer of Light, the most beautiful of all angels before the Fall.

The first time Raphael had seen the statue, he’d stared at it, mesmerised, for so long that his vision had begun to blur. When he finally tore himself away, he’d run to Father Luke and asked him about the statue – why such a beautiful depiction of the adversary? Why show the Antichrist in the purity and beauty he had cast aside in his pride? Father Luke had brushed him off, apparently confused by Raphael’s concern.

“Oh, that old thing? It’s been catching dust since I’ve been here. It’s just that nobody’s ever bothered to put it in storage.”

Raphael should have known then that there was more to the statue than met the eye. No speck of dust touched the unblemished marble even as its pedestal collected it. Even when the church was dark, the statue seemed to glow from the inside. Radiant. Pure. As smooth as skin. Eyes that were full of knowledge, lips that seemed to smile when he looked at them for long enough. Raphael had been to Rome and Florence during his studies, he’d seen the works of Bernini and Michelangelo, and for all their beauty they had not captivated him as this statue did.

He went to see it every day. As if to reassure himself that he had not imagined it, that there was more to it than the dusty old thing Father Luke apparently saw. And every day he found something new about it that made his soul sing: the hard lines of muscles above the hip, the tantalising curl of hair below the ear, the marvellous detail of the angel’s feathers. Every time he found something new, and more than once he wondered if it had moved and changed since his previous visit, impossible as that seemed. 

He went to see it every day, and then twice a day, and then he sneaked into the alcove whenever he found a free minute in his day. He yearned for it in a way he’d never yearned for a man or woman of flesh and blood. The way he’d only ever yearned for God. He did not know what it was he wanted, to kiss the smooth marble, to run his fingers over the finely hewn muscles on the angel’s body, but he knew that what he longed for was rapture. 

The true realisation of what was happening to him, and with it soul-crushing terror, came when the statue started haunting his dreams.

It started with brief flashes he could barely remember when he woke: of white wings, of a voice like silver trumpets whispering his name, of tender fingertips brushing over his cheek. But he woke with heat pounding through his body and his soul, with sweat on his forehead and a shameful hardness under the sheets. And every time he woke, all he could think about was that he wanted to see the statue again, to throw himself onto his knees and worship it, and it was only the horror of that blasphemous fantasy that kept him from putting a hand on himself and sent him under a cold shower instead.

But his soul must have been blacker than he’d ever suspected. No matter how much he prayed, no matter how desperately he threw himself into charity and into his work, no matter how often he swore to exorcise his vile thoughts, week after week his feet carried him back to the statue, and his mind turned to wicked dreams that seemed beyond his control.

They started to become more vivid, as if the cancer of sin was eating itself into his soul, a weed that grew and grew once it had sunk its dirty roots into him. He dreamt of soft lips on his own, of that voice whispering more than only his name, adding flattery and promises, calling him beautiful, lovely, desirable, irresistible … saying that it must have him, calling him a sweet fruit waiting to be plucked, bitten and licked and sucked clean of its juice – 

He woke with his sweat-slick face pressed into the pillows, his hips jerking compulsively against the bed as his treacherous body sought friction and release. When he denied himself, an animal whimper rose from his throat, the sound of a broken creature begging to be put out of its misery.

Shaking like a leaf he sank to his knees on the cold stone floor of his little chamber, folded his hands so tightly that his fingers crushed each other painfully, and started praying. Tears ran freely over his face, his voice was but a quiet sob as he prayed and prayed until he ran out of prayers and merely begged the Lord for forgiveness, for guidance, for the smallest sign of hope, for any hint that this was a test a mortal soul could pass. He prayed until his voice broke and his knees ached, until he had whispered every Bible verse that promised comfort.

“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God _is_ faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear _it_.” 

When his voice failed him, he went fumbling for a pen and scrawled the words onto the wall beside his bed, read them over and over again like he could will them to be true.

But in his blackened soul they rang hollow and mocked his despair. In his prayer he did not find God’s love and light anymore, he did not find hope and forgiveness. He stared into the tattered, soiled ruins of his soul and saw nothing worth saving. Sin came from within, and he was rotten to the core, a festering wound upon the holy body of the Church that had hidden for so long under smiles and kind words, under the mask of a good man, a liar and deceiver like the adversary himself. And what a liar Raphael had been, to deceive even himself.

God did not tempt a man more than he could bear. And if Raphael could not bear this, if these past weeks had broken him already, then the only answer was that he did not truly _want_ to resist. That he had refused the cup of the Lord and chosen the cup of devils instead. That his ruin had been of his own making.

Like a sleepwalker, numb and dazed, he found his way from his chamber into the church itself. Through silence and darkness, only broken by a few ever-lit candles that cast countless shadows over the walls. The closer he came to the statue, the louder the whisper in his mind became. The whisper of the Abyss, he knew, the whisper of temptation, the whisper of his own rotten soul that had driven him from bed. His feet were bare, cold on the stone. In a last act of desperation he’d thrown on his cassock, as if the symbols of priesthood could protect him. As if the Devil would show mercy to a priest’s collar, when even God had forsaken him.

Raphael walked the too familiar steps to the little alcove and there – there stood not a motionless statue, but a living figure, as tall as a man, the magnificent wings folded on its back, the curled hair framing its proud head like a lion’s mane. It still looked as if it was made from marble, but the stone was moving now, breathing, full of life. It turned, showed its intimately familiar face in flattering profile, and then it smiled. 

There was nothing angelic about that smile anymore, not even on those exquisite features. It was the Devil’s grimace.

“I knew you’d come to me, my angel,” said a voice like a thousand organs and yet quiet as a whisper. But it rang like a hellish cacophony in Raphael’s mind, maybe without ever touching his ears. “I knew I would have you. The sweetest fruit in the garden …”

It turned then – _he_ turned, for he’d always been unmistakably male, in the glorious strength of his shoulders, the sharp lines of his arms, and as the fabric slipped from his marble skin, in the proud rise of his member. Raphael flushed as heat crawled once more through his body like a worm, like a sickness, like rot. What a haughty fool he’d been to think himself free of sin when he faltered so easily.

“I shall not force you,” the Devil said. The Tempter, the Seducer. There was no guilt in being forced, they both knew, in succumbing to another’s strength. True shame lay in succumbing to one’s own sinful nature. Cold wings brushed over Raphael’s cheek when the Devil turned, and that first touch set his soul on fire – soft like feathers, hard like marble, as inexorable as his downfall. 

“I shall not force you,” the Devil said again, promising the most cruel fate Raphael could have imagined.

And yet he could not have said how he found himself laid out on the floor, his cassock unbuttoned and spread out to his sides like wings of his own. He could not have said when his head had started to spin as if he’d drunk too much wine at the Eucharist. He could not have said how his own hand had come to touch his bare chest, a heated caress while his eyes were blinded by the glorious white angel above him, that damning light of temptation.

Whether this was nightmare or vision, reality or madness, he knew that he should have tried to escape. He was a healthy, strong young man. He should have jumped to his feet and run until his lungs gave out. He should have gone to find Father Luke and confessed everything that had happened and begged for an explanation, an exorcism, anything. He should have fought, he should have prayed again, he should have trusted in God and pushed back against the serpent one more time. But his body lay there like a sacrificial lamb, still and shameful and waiting to be despoiled. 

The angel touched his lips with the tips of his wings, and he touched Raphael’s legs with the tips of his fingers, sliding up towards the heat they found there. Raphael was untouched, but he was not naive – he knew what men did with each other, understood the mechanics of it. The thought terrified him, of that unrelenting marble pushing inside him, opening, defiling his body so undeniably. 

“No, my angel,” whispered the voices in his mind, some of them sweet as summer wine, others biting as the crack of leather. Maybe he should have taken a scourge to his sinful flesh, but he had been too afraid of the pain. Too weak, and now it was too late. The Devil smiled almost tenderly. “I’ll only have you that way once you are entirely mine. First you must learn who you are.”

The statue’s flesh was cold when it straddled Raphael’s supine body – beautifully muscled thighs encompassed his hips, the most perfectly formed fingers brushed over his chest, and then Raphael’s mind died a hundred deaths when tightness enveloped his manhood. It was – it was nothing like his own hand had ever felt in those rare moments when he hadn’t been able to deny himself, it was cold and foreign and yet had just enough give for him to sink inside that abyss of pleasure without any resistance. 

He wanted to move his arms, whether to touch the marble skin or free himself he did not know, but found them as if bound to the stone floor. His legs were paralysed as well, and he could barely even turn his head. His body was as motionless as a statue should be, while the living stone atop of him moved with a snake’s sensuality. Muscles rippled across the Devil’s stomach and his chest, slithered in his thighs when he moved up and sank back down on Raphael’s treacherous flesh. It was the most glorious sensation he’d ever felt, yet not bright and liberating like rapture, but as if something dark and terrifying wrapped itself around his very soul. Every spike of pleasure that tore through his body darkened his soul, destroyed what little virtue he had left that still wanted to resist.

Above him the light blinded him, like a halo around the marbled curls. White wings spread out in a mockery of an angel’s purity while the Devil’s body writhed in base lust, hips grinding down against Raphael until he could not hold his sobbing moans back anymore.

“Have mercy, please,” he whispered. His eyes hurt from too much crying, his cheeks burnt under barely dried salt. Beautifully curved lips smiled darkly, but the touch of the Devil’s cool hand on Raphael’s cheek was almost tender. The ache subsided under his fingers, but not the feeling of being dirty, sullied, by his own despair more than by that vile touch.

“Mercy? Mercy is only granted to those who are wronged,” the Devil said, as if this was not the most despicable thing imaginable, as if the pleasure Raphael’s sinful body felt was not the wrongest thing in the world. “Not to those who invite me in with open arms. Mercy is for God’s creatures, not for mine own.”

Even through the veil of his tears Raphael could see that angelic face clearly, burnt into his mind and his soul for an eternity of damnation. A broken moan tore itself from his throat when pleasure overwhelmed him, and even now he could not help but feel like his seed was staining something greater than himself, something too beautiful for him to touch. He was but a sinful mortal, reaching for something greater than himself in his hubris, and stumbling straight into his own downfall.

He had enjoyed it, had he not? He had wanted it, desired it in all the filthy depths of his wicked soul. He had run towards corruption as if he’d been waiting for it his entire life, he’d taken the first opportunity to debase himself the world had offered him.

Temptation came from within, and if the Devil had chosen him, it could only have been because he knew that Raphael was ripe for the taking. The sweetest fruit, so heavy with want that the Devil barely had to reach out to pluck it.

When cold marble lips covered his own in a first, terrible, damning kiss, Raphael cried, but he did not pray anymore. He had drunk from the cup of devils. He had signed his own damnation.


End file.
